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Sunday, 30 September 2012

Good morning folks, how's your weekend going? We had a lovely sunny Autumn day yesterday, it was a bit nippy but perfect dog walking weather. My card today is for our new challenge over at PanPastel UK where the theme is 'All about the Sentiment/Quote'

I've created a little Autumn scene using PanPastels and Stampendous stamps as a backdrop for my sentiment. The stamps are actually Christmas stamps but I thought they'd make a nice scene for any time of year. I added some leaves in red/orange and green with derwent pastel pencils and stamped the sentiment (from Sheena Douglass) with versamark and embossed with an antique gold EP.

To frame the sentiment i made a flower using watercolour paper coloured with orange PanPastel, die cut with tattered florals and a button and twine bow in the centre. I coloured some card with orange, burnt sienna and yellow green PanPastels and then stamped with various leaf stamps (again by Sheena Douglass). I cut them out and created a little frame for the sentiment, adding a couple of tattered pine cones and some faux red berries.

If you've got a minute do check out my talented teamies blogs as they've come up with some stunning artwork, don't they always lol?? Anyway I'm off to tackle a big basket of ironing and then have some quality time with my PanPastels lol

Friday, 28 September 2012

Good morning, today's card is my DT project for Crafty Ann's Challenge Blog where Ann has set us the theme of 'Inspired by a Film'. Now I don't watch much TV and very rarely watch a film so this was tricky, made even more tricky by the fact that my pesky printer is still on the blink. Anyway I had this lovely 'Bird on Blossom Branch' printed off so I've taken my inspiration from 'The Birds' even though i've never seen it lol.

The image is coloured with promarkers and cut out with sizzix die. I've used papers from Prima's Almanac paper pad, distressed with a craft knife and distress ink and added faux stitching around the edge with a black fineliner pen. I've added some cheesecloth coloured with distress stain, prima flowers, lace and ribbon from my stash, some cute little feathers and some die cut swirls. I've also added a sentiment made using spellbinders fancy tags and a Chocolate Baroque stamp.The butterfly and birds nest are also from the Prima Almanac paper pad.

Thursday, 27 September 2012

Good morning :-) Thursday already or as my ever optimistic son calls it 'Friday Eve' lol. My card today is another sample using the scrummy new clear stamps from Chocolate Baroque.

I made a little shaped easel card using nestabilities and cut an aperture in the top part of the easel to hold the focal image which is stamped on vellum. I embossed the lantern from the reverse with a ball tool and added a little colour with coloursoft pencils. The sentiment and frame are from 'Best Relative Ever', stamped with versamark and embossed with WOW gold detail EP, I used a gold krylon pen around the edges. To prop the easel up I added some of the lovely cherry blossoms from Chocolate Baroque and some paper roses. Here's another photo showing the side view, I've popped a little battery tea light in to shine through the lantern:

Tuesday, 25 September 2012

Good morning, the weather's been dreadful here for the last few days, I think I'll have webbed feet before long at this rate lol. My card today features some of the new clear stamps from Chocolate Baroque.

The background was created with distress inks (Tumbled Class, Peeled Paint and Tea Dye), blended on to Southfield White card and then splashed with water to give a mottled effect. I over stamped the background with dragonflies and bamboo stamps from 'Moonlit Waterfall'.

I stamped the scene using stamps from Oriental Crane with versafine ink and coloured with distress markers. I used some black card for matting and layering and added an oriental coin charm attached with some shimmery braid.

Before I dash off to work here are a couple of pics of our lovely puppy Barney, he's growing at a rate of knots and is full of love (and mischief lol). Here he is with his big brother and best friend Benji

Barney still hasn't worked out how to get down stairs and has a habit of rushing up stairs and then crying to be carried down, one of David's friends took this pic the other day. Look at those scary eyes, I think Barney is getting ready for Halloween lol.

Right, better get myself off to work, have a good day and thanks for popping by

Sunday, 23 September 2012

Good morning, Sunday morning already and my week off work has flown by but its been nice to recharge my batteries and get some rest up. My card this morning is my DT project for PanPastel UK where our theme is 'Good Luck'

I've used various shades of green panpastels for my card, I started with Green tint which I applied all over the card, I then applied permanent green and a little green shade over a lovely prima mask. The stamp in the centre is from Chocolate Baroque, the little 4 leaf clover is coloured with distress markers. I stamped the swirls around the edge with versamark and then applied panpastel in Permanent green over the top. I've added seam binding, a little white pearly button, bakers twine, a little silver butterfly charm, some punched vellum butterflies and lots of tiny white punched flowers with viva gloss gel in the centres and tiny pearls also created with a viva pearl pen.

Hi there folks, we've got a new challenge starting at Fashionable Stamping Challenges and this time our theme 'Alter Something' has been set by my lovely teamie Silvia. As always we've got a great prize up for grabs from our lovely sponsor Marina at Cottage Crafts.

I've altered a little chipboard bird house that I received from another of the lovely talented ladies on the FSC DT, Paula (thank you Paula). We've just decorated the dining room (well thats a royal we as my son has done the hard work lol) and its got a bit of a birdy theme going on so I thought I'd make a little something to put on the wall.

I painted the bird house with cream acrylic paint and then added colour with violet and extra dark magenta PanPastels and gave it a spray with hairspray to seal the colours. I'veused stamps from Stampers Anonymous, firstly stamping the text in Rich Cocoa Memento ink and then with versamark embossed with a scrummy sparkly gold EP. I've added some more of this EP around the edges of the bird house. I've popped on some glittered acetate butterflies, some purple ribbon , a key and some gorgeous beaded lacy trim (also thanks to Paula). The die cut bird has been blinged up with some Cocoa glimmer glam paint and a purple radiant rain dabber,

Friday, 21 September 2012

I've used memento inks and glossy card for this project, the focal image made me think of all the lovely old 'Willow Pattern' chine that my grandma used to have in her china cabinet so I took inspiration from that to create this card. I've used various shades of blue memento inks to stamp the images, added a doily from my stash, some faux pearls, ribbon in shades of blue and white and finished off with a button and a tiny little bow.

Wednesday, 19 September 2012

Hi there how's your week going? I'm really enjoying my week off work, after such a hectic few months its bliss to be able to potter around and spend lots of time in my craft room. I've been having LOADS of fun with the fab new Graph'It Markers which are now in stock at Your Creativity Store. I'm counting down til payday so I can order some more. Anyway I decided to make a card inspired by the colours of Halloween and road test the markers with PanPastels too.

The background were made with panpastels and Chocolate Baroque stamps. I used versamark with stamps from Dusky Damask for the background panel, stamping over the pans and then dusting with more panpaste (I used violet and yellow/green pans) it gives a gorgeous effect. I coloured the image with Graph'it Markers, these pens blend wonderfully using the Mix'it. I ts hard to describe so I thought I'd take a pic so you could see what I mean, You just use the Mix'It as a palette with your alcohol markera and the colours on the Mix'it can be reactivated with the blender pen so there's no waste. How cool is that??

You've got to love the storage boxes these markers come in too. As you can see the markers look quite chunky, I've only got small hands but they are really comfortable to work with, I'm itching to get my paws on some more of these fabby pens.

Tuesday, 18 September 2012

Hi there, today's card share features some more of the scrumptious new clear stamps from Chocolate Baroque, this time I've used the focal image from 'Moonlit Waterfall' which I've coloured with distress markers.

I stamped and embossed the main image with WOW Gold detail EP black card and cut out the frame, layering it up over the image with 3d foam for some depth. I didn't think this beautiful little scene needed a lot of embellishments so I created a background using the delicate dragonfly silhouette stamps from the same stamp sheet. I stamped the dragonflies with versamark and again embossed with gold EP. To finish off I've added some gold braid and a glossy black button from my stash.

Sunday, 16 September 2012

Good morning, we've got a new challenge starting at PanPastel UK and the theme is 'Autumn/Fall' and here in my little corner of the UK Autumn has definitely arrived. The days are getting shorter and the mornings are a lot colder, I do love this time of year though as the leaves are just starting to change colour and the greens, golds and oranges look so beautiful.

For my card I've used my PanPastels (of course lol) and stamps from Chocolate Baroque's Tall Trees theme plate. I began by creating a background with PanPastels (Diarylide Yellow Shade, Permanent green shade, Yellow Green shade and a little Hansa Yellow) and overstamping with the leaf stamps using Forest Moss and Peeled Paint distress inks. Next I used Diarylide yellow, hansa yellow tint and orange to make the background for the focal image, I used the palest shade first and then masked the sun before adding the deeper colours. I love this huge stamp, its one of my all time favourites, I stamped the image with Memento Tuxedo black and used sakura pens to add some colour, I used stardust pens on the trees and birds and a bright purple glaze pen for the berries. You can see the effect of the pens a bit better in this pic:

I made some flowers with watercolour paper coloured with purple and orange pan pastels. I used Tattered florals for the larger flower and Tattered pinecone for the smaller roses. I added some irridescent seed beads to the large flower. To finish off I' added some green seambinding ribbon and some die cut leaves (coloured with panpastels and overstamped with one of the scrummy Chocolate Baroque lace fragments stamps)

Saturday, 15 September 2012

Hi there, woo hoo weekend at last and now I've got a week off work . I'm planning on lots of lazing around, plenty of crafting and not much else lol, but before i get on with that here's a Christmas card using some of the new clear stamps from Chocolate Baroque, this time I've used 'Ivy Trails' which you can find here

I stamped the images in black archival ink except for the sentiment which I stamped with versamark and embossed with gold detail WOW embossing powder. I coloured the image with distress markers and lightly inked around the edges with tea dye and pumice stone distress inks. I've used gold mirri card and ivy green card for matting and layering.

Friday, 14 September 2012

Good morning, yaaaaay Friday at last! When I finish work today Ive got a week off, yippppeeeeee. Not only is Friday almost the weekend but its time for a new challenge at Crafty Ann's and this time Ann has a choice for you, a gorgeous sketch and/or Autumn colours.

Unfortunately my pesky printer has conked out, so I couldn't use any of Crafty Ann's gorgeous bps but thank goodness I've always got plenty of images printed out. I've used one of my all time favourite, this beautiful Venetian Mask (you can find it here at Crafty Ann's Digi Shop). I've coloured it with my fabby new Graph'it markers and used the blender pen to add some texture to the shading, I've also added lots of faux pearls and glitter glue. The papers I've used are from Graphic 45's 'Olde Curiosity Shoppe' paper pad, I've die cut a spellbinders shape and layered the image over it. To finish off I've added some ribbon and paper roses from Wild Orchid Crafts.

Tuesday, 11 September 2012

Good morning folks, a quick post from me today as I'm dashing off to work. Todays card features the gorgeous new clear stamps from Chocolate Baroque, I've used the Witches Brew set for my card

The spider web background is brayered but the focal image uses PanPastels, for all the details, pop over to the Chocolate Baroque DT Blog. Its always worth a visit as my talented teamies have been busy creating the most gorgeous projects to inspire you.

Monday, 10 September 2012

Hi there, us girlies on the PanPastel DT are soooooo lucky :-) A few weeks ago we were tasked with a secret mission, to play with a box of the most scrumptious crafty goodies from our lovely sponsor Berni at Your Creativity Store. All we had to do was see what we could create BUT (there's always a but isn't there lol) we had to keep it under our hats! Now you know what a chatterbox I am so this was no easy task, especially when I found that some of the new goodies were fabulous new marker pens that nobody but us had got their mits on !!! oooooh how exciting, I've been bursting to tell lol

Graph'IT Markers aren't just ordinary markers, they are alcohol based markers that come in a nifty storage box in a really wide range of colours, nothing new there I hear you say well these markers have a very clever extra ..... the Mix'It Blending Palette. I was a bit baffled when I first got my paws on this as it looks like a little craft mat but you use it to blend your markers on and then apply them to your image with the blender pen. These pens are really juicy and blend wonderfully, the selection I received was a gorgeous mix of colours but I was a bit flummoxed as there was nothing like a skin colour but ........ ta da!!!! With a bit of pink and orange and lots of blender Tilda has a lovely skin colour. It took a little bit of getting used to applying the colour with the blender pen but its soooooo much quicker than the usual way of colouring with alcohol markers. I found myself using the chisel tip for most of the colouring. I've always been a real promarkers fan but I think Graph'It pens are going to be my new favourites. They have a bullet tip and a chisel tip but the bullet tip is finer than with promarkers so better for detailed work,

The bps I've used for this card are from Tim's shabby papers, with some lace,flowers, pearls and seam binding from my stash.

Sunday, 9 September 2012

Hi again, we've been having some gorgoeus weather here in the UK, perfect for a bit of 'Summer Fun' which is our theme at PanPastel UK. I haven't been having much summer fun as I was at work yesterday and today I've got a ginormous pile of paperwork to tackle yuk!

I've created a summer scene for my DT card, the stamps are all from Stampscapes except for the little boat which is from Sheena Douglass. I masked the sun and used ultramarine blue and the tint to create the sky, removed the mask and created the sun using diarylide yellow panpastel.

I stamped the images with Memento Tuxedo Black and then created the sea with ultramarine blue tint, turquoise, and phthalo blue panpastels. I used a pencil eraser to create the waves and then added some colour to the islands with yellow, burnt sienna and orange pan pastels. I used a distress marker to colour the red sails.

Hi there and a big warm welcome to my new followers, its lovely to 'meet' you and hopefully I'll have returned the favour and joined your merry band of followers. If you don't have a link to your blog on your profile do leave me a link so I can stop by and say hi. Anyway back to business, its time for a new challenge over on the catwalk at Fashionable Stamping Challenges. This time I chose the theme which is 'Good things come in small packages' so we want to see you creating something small scale, anything from an ATC to a mini book or alter something small. Of course as we're a rubber stamping blog we want to see some stamping on your project.

I'd planned on making some ATCs for this challenge but kind of got into shrink plastic mode and thought it would be perfect for this challenge. I'd had this project in my head for ages, since I saw some gorgeous 'Captured Fairy' projects at a craft fair. I wanted to create a captured mermaid and oh my goodness did it give me some grey hairs (ok then some more grey hairs lol)

Apologies for the dodgy photos this project was almost as tricky to photograph as it was to make lol. I took a little jar from the ginormous pile of 'stuff waiting to be altered' in my craft room and set too with the glue and flowersoft to create the sand at the bottom of the jar. I coloured the flowersoft with alcohol ink to make it a yellowy orange colour and added some shells from my stash to the bottom of the jar. I stamped the background and coloured it with distress markers, cut it out and stuck it on the outside of the jar with multimedium. Next I used a little stream and pearl alcohol inks to colour some of the glass and the reverse of the background. Next I made the little figures, both of which are quite large stamps (all the stamps used are from Chocolate Baroque), I stamped them with versafine ink, coloured with distress markers, cut them out and shrunk them with my heat gun. Here's a pic of them before they went in the jar

So far all was going smoothly the tricky bit was hanging the little mermaid and seadragon in the jar. Oh my, did I get in a stress lol. Anyway eventually I used invisible thread and made holes in the jar lid to thread them though, it took a bit of 'faffing' around to get them to hang properly but they behaved in the end lol. To cover the lid of the jar I made a little brayered sea, added some shells (real and shrink plastic), a little boat (this stamp is from the Stamp Man) and a little 'journey' key. I added some pearl trim, some lacey sequin trim, and some blue green sea weedy fibres. I covered the edge of the lid with string. This was a bit of a performance as I used my hot glue gun and got in such a mess with stringy bits of glue everywhere. I popped some white netting under the lid and the job was done. Here's a pic of the lid

I'm entering my little 'Captured Mermaid' in the following challenges:

Thursday, 6 September 2012

Hi folks, just to let you know that there are some exciting things happening at Chocolate Baroque today and you're not going to want to miss the fun. There's prizes, discounts and lots of exciting things happening so click here to find out more .

Sunday, 2 September 2012

Good morning, I hope you're having a great weekend. I'm a happy bunny this morning as my altered gift box made the top 3 at Allsorts and my little panpastel scene made the top 3 in the Great Outdoors challenge at Craft a Scene. PanPastels are perfect for that kind of project but you can also use them for more detailed work as you can see in this card. Our theme this week at PanPastel UK is 'All about stripes' and I've used ultramarine blue tint and ultramarine blue pans with some masking tape to create a striped background for this card.

The focal image is a Michael Powell stamp, I stamped it on to watercolour card, added colour with panpastels and then used distress markers for more definition. I added a die cut sentiment (which doesn't show up too well in the pic) with a couple of little wooden buttons and some string from my stash. I'm entering this card in the following challenges:

As always we've got a fab prize up for grabs, our lucky winner will receive a panpastel starter set from Berni our lovely sponsor at Your Creativity Store. Be warned though once you've tried them you'll be hooked lol.

Do check out my talented teamies blogs as they have come up with some stunning artwork to inspire you again this week. Have a lovely Sunday and thanks for popping by

Saturday, 1 September 2012

Hi folks, I've got some very exciting news I've been invited to join the DT for Flonz craft. I was so excited when I was invited to join this fab new team and of course I jumped at the chance to work with such fantastic products and such lovely talented stampers . We're going to have a monthly challenge for projects with a vintage theme, and our first monthly challenge starts on October 1st so for the next few weeks we'll be sharing some inspiration using gorgeous stamps from Flonzcraft.

I've used a 1950s lady and a 1950s car stamp for this card. The lady is stamped and coloured with promarkers before being cut out, the car is stamped on Ranger foil tape, again coloured with promarkers and cut out. I've also used a backing paper from K&Co, lots of kraft card, my new spellbinders, some scrummy satin ribbon and a sentiment stamp from Chocolate Baroque. Here's a couple more pics to show these fabulous stamps

Flonzcraft our regular sponsor has a fantastic selection of stamps and they are such a great price you afford to treat yourself. The stamps come in clear stamps ready to pop on your acrylic block or with adhesive ready to mount permanently on a block. I was really impressed with the quality and range of stamps. Although they come all the way from New Zealand, the postage is very reasonable and delivery much fast than I'd expected too :-)

This pic shows the detail of the stamps a bit better, I love the effect of the car on the foil tape, I stamped it with versamark and embossed with black EP before colouring with promarkers.

Well it really feels like winter is on the way in my little corner of the UK, the temperature has dropped, its getting dark much earlier and Dr Who and X factor are back on TV lol. We always call September 'Spider month' and sure enough a ginormous spider has taken up residence above the TV eeeeeek!! I guess he wants to watch Dr Who too lol.

Hi there, wow we were chuffed to bits to see so many gorgeous entries for our first challenge at

No Matter Which Challenges, can you believe its September already so that means its time for a new challenge. This time we want to see die cuts and/or punches used on your projects.

Suzanne has arranged some fab sponsors and this months winner certainly won't be disappointed as the prize up for grabs is a free place on one of the courses at My Creative Classroom! I've done quite a few of their courses and they are fab-u-lous :-)

Anyway back to my DT project, I've made a Christmas card (not long now eeeek) using one of my favourite Whiff of Joy stamps, watercoloured with distress markers and die cut with spellbinders. The backing paper was made with moonshadow inks and has a lovely shimmer in real life. I've added some scraps of backing papers from my Christmas box and some crinoline fabric (from Linda at The Funkie Junkie) stamped with a stampers anonymous music score stamp with walnut stain distress ink. You can see the image better in this pic: